The Times supplied me with many conjectures. The senile old King was dead; his heir, the Prince Paul, had lived his own life in Europe incognito, and the heir was not forthcoming. Rumor said he was in Paris.
For three days I watched the General. He knew no one at the hotel, he spoke to no one, but I saw him more than once in earnest conversation with a young man about my own age, about my own height, about my own color, but—for the sake of my own vanity—alike in no other particular. This was—the information was easily come by—the Comte de Troisétoilles, a young Frenchman of position, now considerably taken with the beautiful singer, Mlle. Aimée Bergeaux. That was the story noised about, and in proof thereof her little steam yacht rode in the harbor, he was constantly with her, and a rumor was essential to the place. A companion, large, fat, unmistakably German and delightfully placid, cast a broad, complacent smile of propriety over the romance.
My General, I noted, snarled at the soprano for whose smiles princes competed. He was thorough, was my General, dear man of stone. Venus herself would have been baffled by him. But he spoke earnestly and vehemently to the Count, he who was so taciturn.
On the evening of the third day I met my General on the south cliff by the absurd little fort. There was a streak of smoke on the horizon. He was shaking a fist at it, a violent, tempestuous fist.
I have been a prey to sudden impulses all my life. I had maintained an Englishman’s reserve for three days. I broke it suddenly on the cliff. I accosted the General in Ertarian.
“You are disturbed, General Hartzel,” I said.
He wheeled round surprisingly. His astonishment grew when he saw me, the silent companion of his luncheons.
“Monsieur speaks Ertarian,” he said.
“A little,” I answered modestly, yet with inward elation. To surprise a man of granite! Elation was surely pardonable.
“As a native,” he continued. I bowed. “It is wonderful! Are you Ertarian?”